Today at Streaming Media West 2000, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Corp. president and CEO, unveiled the new Windows Media Audio and Video 8 beta technology for the delivery of audio and video over the Internet. Achieving new benchmarks for the delivery of the highest-quality audio and video in the smallest bandwidth, Microsoft´s new compression technology enables the delivery of film content at near-DVD quality across Internet broadband connection speeds as low as 500 Kbps, and near-CD-quality audio streams on a 48Kbps connection. The Windows Media Audio and Video 8 beta is compatible with Microsoft Windows Media Player 7 and 6.4, and offers content owners the benefits of improved quality and lower bandwidth costs while reaching more than 220 million Windows Media Players worldwide.

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